Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said in a statement Thursday that the investigation of Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei, the pair accused of webcasting the homosexual encounter of Tyler Clementi, who later committed suicide, could lead to a bias charge, if the evidence supported it. This angle of the story, which many in the NJ.com community had already been discussing, is generating dozens of comments.

Listen, I got no problem if the prosecutor can find a way to get these kids on some sort of manslaughter charge.

But why a special class of crime because someone is gay? What if he didn't like his roomate because he was a nerd, or shy, or snored, or listened to German techno-pop all day. Is that a "hate" crime. There are a lot or reasons you have to deal with bad roomates or hallmates and I feel terrible for Tyler, but there are a lot of bullies out there and some of them don't just pick on gay people. In fact, some are gay people.

Answering another commenter questioning whether there would have been bias if a gay man had videotaped a heterosexual couple, NJ.com user Kaibelf says,

Would a gay man have bothered? Not likely, as there's very little "wow" factor. however, when you invite everyone on Twitter to watch your big gay roommate have sex like it's some kind of zoo event simply because it was GAY, then yes, it's bias.